I read a link to the No S diet on a friends Blog and decided to give it a try. I was tempted to start on Saturday which would have given me two S days to START me off (ho! ho!) but decided it was a bit cheaty and, hey, Monday is my weighing day anyway.

A little bit of background. Like many people I have successfully dieted and put it all back on (and more!). A couple of years ago I decided that enough was enough and simply stopped dieting. I don't count calories, I don't count points, I don't buy low-fat versions of food and I'd rather eat cardboard than another calorie-counted ready meal. Instead I concentrated on eating healthily and started home-cooking so I could control what I ate.

I was suprised to find that even though I thought I wasn't eating less I lost about a stone in weight over the course of a year. Not so suprising was that I'm now spending a heck of a lot less on food (remember: nothing tastes as good as not being overdrawn feels!).

Sadly the initial weight loss has stopped, probably because I'm eating just the right (calorific) amount. I'd still be overweight but a lot happier if I lost another couple of stone. There's plenty of give, however, because as I've not been on a diet I'm been pretty generous with the Sweets, Snacks and Seconds. Now strikes me as just the right time to tackle my other eating habits before the excesses of the Christmas season and the No S diet sounds like an ideal way to do this, with ideas that match my own on losing weight slowly through long term changes.

Just to check a couple of things:

1) I normally eat a piece of fruit at 4 p.m. to break up a long stretch between lunch (typically 12) and dinner (normally post 6). Should I make myself eat it as part of my lunch or can I designate it a meal?

2) I'm on holiday in France for a few days at the end of November during the week. Should I swap the weekends in or just designate the four days as special? I'm fairly sure they don't add sugar to cake in France (yup, I'm delusional).

I'm Angela BTW. Pleased to meet you.

Last edited by ang_grrr on Sun Nov 13, 2005 5:25 pm; edited 3 times in total

Hi Angela!
Welcome and good luck!!
I am sure this will be helpful to you... You already sound like you were kind of living a NOS life already... Congrats on taking the initiative to help yourself in a humane, and liveable way!

ps.. LOL.. Nah, they have sugarless cake in France...

pps.. See how you would do adding your fruit to your lunch meal.. I'm guessing if you have a fruit at lunch, it will last you till dinner.. If this doesn't work and you absolutely feel the need for a mid afternoon pick up, then just virtual plate it from lunch, or call it a mini meal..

Aha! So I managed to convert you
(well, convince you to give this a try, anyhow)

I have always bent the rules a little and said that up to 2 portions of fruit or raw veg is allowed in addition to my 3 meals a day. Usually, I don't acutally need to eat it these days, but it helped a lot at the start whilst I was still getting over the sugar addiction. It still helps now in that I know I can eat some fruit and get on with worrying about the rest of my life, rather than worrying about whether or not I'm hungry!

A lot of other people do it slightly differently in that they leave a space on their lunch plate where the apple (for example) could have fitted. Or they even put the apple on the plate with lunch, but save it for later. This is a virtual plating exercise which can be useful to make sure that you're eating the fruit INSTEAD of, and NOT AS WELL AS some other less healthy part of your meal.

One of the greatest things about this particular eating plan is that it's perfectly allowed to tweak the rules a little to fit your own situation better. Afterall, everybody is different, why should one size always fit all? As long as you're clear yourself what the rules are and you try to stick to them, you'll be fine.

A lot of other people do it slightly differently in that they leave a space on their lunch plate where the apple (for example) could have fitted. Or they even put the apple on the plate with lunch, but save it for later. This is a virtual plating exercise which can be useful to make sure that you're eating the fruit INSTEAD of, and NOT AS WELL AS some other less healthy part of your meal.

Ah. That explains the virtual plating thing. I need to get myself a "work lunch" plate so I can stack everything up before I leave to check with myself. Today I have soup, a sandwich, an apple and the life-saving banana. The soup is in a flask so I can put it on the plate without there being an embarrassing incident.

I'm quite good as avoiding sweets but I do struggle with crisps and other salty snack foods. My biggest downfalls are cheese, crackers and chips. Perhaps I should designate C an honorary S until I get the hang of things.

actually, Viscount_S (my husband, also known as 'the Boy') did a 'no C diet' a few years back, when he realised that crisps, cheese and chocolate were his major pitfalls.

One of the nicest things about NoS for me is that nothing is actually banned, just delayed. If it helps, you could always do as you suggested and list those things as honorary esses, but is the problem *really* the foods themselves, or is it SNACKING on them? If it's just a snacking thing, then you'll address them anyway indirectly. Afterall, a cheese sarnie for lunch is just lunch, right? If you wanted a bag of crisps with your lunch and they fit on your plate, then it's lunch. Whether it's nutritionally a good thing is another matter, but that's up to you

Virtual plating is also pretty useful when there are things that don't really mix well. Like do you want your bread to go soggy in your soup already..? Nah, didn't think so. So virtually plate it instead. Just be careful it's not an excuse for eating more food than would really have fitted on the plate.

And you know what, it was completely automatic and I only realised I'd done it when I came to write stuff down.

I was out at the theatre last night. I had my three meals, drank my coffee black and even remembered at dinner to order water instead of lemonade. Once at the theatre the performance featured a lot of dry ice. This makes me cough and so, for the benefit of other patrons, I had three cough sweets. I don't even normally eat sweets! Ah well. Onward and upwards.

Having a fairly hefty breakfast (a bacon buttie!) seems to be seeing me through to lunch with no problems but although I managed the stretch to dinner okay Monday, yesterday I had to eat my reserve fruit at 4 p.m. Obviously this was because I had been thinking very very hard. Dinner was a pork chop, cabbage and potato with gravy but I was a tiny bit hungry when I went to bed. I'll make sure I add a more substantial veg like carrots tonight.

They said they'd bought scones because they began with and S and thought I could eat them. They are just being deliberately silly.

I've realised that some people are logging what they eat so I guess I should write stuff down for the past three days. Warning... I've been having an unusually meaty week because I wanted to have a hefty breakfast.

Day 1
Bacon sarnie and 2 cups coffee with milk.
Soup, tuna and sweetcorn sandwich, apple and banana.
Bacon burger and salad (out for dinner)
3 cough sweets.
Various cups of black decaf coffee (I normally have milk but have forsworn it for the first 21 days and we'll see how we go) water and herbal tea. This is pretty much every day.
Day 2
Bacon sarnie and 2 cups coffee with milk. (see the theme)
Ham sandwich, packet of crisps, apple and banana.
Pork chop, cabbage, mashed potato and gravy. (I like to call this "The Day of Pigs")
Day 3
Bacon sarnie and 2 cups coffee with milk.
Home-made scotch broth, cheese sandwich, apple and banana.
Stir fry pork with curry noodles.

While this probably sounds horrific to some people the last few weeks my diet has been more like this:

2 pieces toast at home with 2 cups coffee.
Cake/chocolate bar and coffee at morning break.
Soup, sandwich and crisps for dinner with diet coke
Apple and banana during the afternoon. More coffee
Piece of bread while cooking dinner.
Dinner (pasta, stew, whatever) with cup of tea.
Supper, sometimes, toast
Hot chocolate before bed.

Don't feel you have to write down everything you eat. Some people find it helps, but a lot of us never bother. Personally I only write it down if it was particularly interesting to me for some reason.

Also, milk in your coffee is unlikely to make a great deal of difference on the 'macro' scale of things. Coffee with milk is almost certainly less of an issue than a ton of diet coke. Tricking your tastebuds with Artificial Sugar is generally thought to make it harder.... although there's no 'hard and fast' rule about that either, Reinhard put somewhere that "naturally thin people don't cram themselves with diet products, so neither should you."

It seems like you're off to a reasonable start though. Good going so far.
C._________________CaroleJo

Had and apple betty with my lunch. This is a apple turnover with cream and very nice it was too. Later on I had a pint of guinness and some shandy at the charity do plus about 10 peanuts. I didn't eat the pies and sandwiches offered and I stopped at a couple of drinks.

The time has come to start thinking about doing some exercise. I've been reading about shovelglove and while it intrigues me I don't think there is enough room in my tiny house for me to fling around a hammer. Not with my accident record. My dancemat for the PS2 is at my parent's house (for their grandkids. My Mum and Dad don't get down to the groovy beats) so I think I'll get it back I try this for 15 minutes a day.

My favourite exercise is walking and while I like the idea of urban rangering it's not practical for me to walk to and from work (I'm 6 miles away and work on a university campus which happens to be in the middle of a vice zone!). Instead I take myself away at the weekend for a couple of hours of good quality wandering. The merseyside coast is great for this although I'm a member of the National Trust which gains me access to a number of country estates. The problem with this is that I need a clear weekend to be able to do it and this is the first one for ages. Now I need to decide where I am going to go tomorrow!

I'm having three meals a day. I'm not even thinking about snacking in between meals. Yesterday I did have a mince pie a friend had made but it was tiny and it was with my lunch.

I've decided that stopping the milk in my coffee was going a bit far - it's meant to be a sustainable change and there's no way I can keep this up. I'm addicted to calcium. I've not had any sugary drinks. One last day of having some control over what and when I eat before the chaos of a family holiday.

Not having control over what and when you eat can be a real pain, but at least it doesn't mean that its automatically not 'noS friendly'. Afterall, you've not got to ask everyone to cook special foods for you!

Welcome to the group. Thought I'd just say hello and chip in with a bit of unsolicited comments/advice/controversy.

I know what you mean about wanting something 'extra' around 3 or 4pm. Before I made my initial attempt on the 21 day run, I decided that this would count as a snack. Instead, I got myself a hot chocolate from the drinks machine at work. I knew that this was 'stupid' at the time - the Hot Chocolate's GOT to have more calories in it than an apple or banana, right? - but PSYCHOLOGICALLY I knew I wasn't having anything to EAT. And that made a difference to me in terms of thinking success/failure.

Nowadays I just have a hot drink without sugar at around 3pm. I don't drink tea or coffee, so I have Caro or Barleycup (and if I was at home it would probably be hot vimto!).

DaveA_________________"The best diet is the one you donít know youíre on" - Brian Wansink

Flight is at 7.30 so I leave the house at 4.30 am. Breakfast is a Boots meal deal and a cup of coffee. Sweets on the plane (can you travel without a sweet to suck? I can't). First burger of the day in Disneyland Paris - chicken breast and salad but still a burger. Tea is in McDonalds. In between coffees and, I confess, a bottle of Sprite. Paris is cold.
Thursday 24th Nov.

Humungous breakfast from the buffet means that when it comes to lunchtime, in another burger bar, I only have a kids fish-shape and chips meal with a yoghurt and water. Throughout the day lots and lots of coffee because Paris is now *wet* and cold. My evening meal is a nutritious combination of a cheese string, packet of crisps, doughnut, chocolate biscuit and a bottle of wine.

Friday 25th Nov.

Breakfast buffet is now down to a fine art and I can cram 40-50 croissants in. Okay, 2 rolls, 2 toast, 1 pain au chocolate and associated cheese and meat. Plus a bowl of fruit. I don't bother with lunch (apart from a packet of maltesers) but in desperation search for something healthier to eat for tea. This turns out to be a rather sorry looking baked potato and a dessert of crepe. Another bottle of Sprite keeps my spirits up until I get back to the hotel for a yoghurt I'd hidden in the mini-bar.

Saturday 26th Nov.

After spending the night dreaming of brocolli I wake up to another breakfast buffet. I do my best but it's getting hard to be enthusiastic toward the croissants so I have a bowl of cornflakes and pretend the vitamins are real. At lunch it's back the Mucky's where a chicken sandwich is probably the healthiest thing I can have (apart, of course, from the salad, but I find it hard to eat iceberg lettuce when it's snowing outside). This sees me right through to the evening when I buy a pasta meal from a supermarket shop. It's got almost real carrot and courgette in.

So there you go. It could have been so much worse (my travelling companions pretty much constantly ate crisps and sweets) but it really could have been better. Sadly eating well at Disneyland Paris costs far too much. There wasn't any sort of cheap italian or chinese, all the snack places where diners, and any more exotic restaurants cost upwards of 20Euro for a main meal. I couldn't even find a shop that sold fruit. I've probably lost some weight but I suspect it's malnutrition.

This morning I'm going to sit and plan my meals for the week while I wait for the supermarket to open. Fruit will probably be the first thing I buy.

Although I was really really hungry at 4 o'clock I resisted snacking and had a "quick" dinner of baked potato, cold chicken and salad rather than the veg and gravy I was planning.

I have a dilemma. Advent calendar. I've sewn one for myself and I was looking forward to having a sweetie every day in work. Do I put the sweets in, take them out every day, and hide them until saturday or do I put in little paper IOUs so I don't tempt myself?

I dunno. I know officially the rules would say "leave them til the weekend", but it's kind of a special thing. Personally, if I had an edible advent calendar I'd make an exception for the one little sweet or chocolate each day from it. Fortunately I'm spared this dilemma because my calendar is the kind with little pictures instead. I also usually burn an advent candle, but I haven't found one for this year yet. I don't know if you can even get those over here in the Netherlands.

If you're just having the one little sweet each day, I can't see that it will do much harm in the longer term. What do the rest of you lot think?